cmrosensAuthor Spotlight: Queer Cyberpunk author A.E. Bross
My name is Addy (they/them or xe/xem) and I write under A.E. Bross. I love to write across genres, though at the moment only have fantasy and modern romantasy published. I’m a lot of things—queer, agender, disabled, autistic, exhausted—but I’m nothing if not a jack of all trades and a master of none. It’s why my other job is as a librarian. On top of that, I’m parent to a teenager (who also wants to be a writer), spouse to a poet, and grandparent to two very different kitties.
AUTHOR LINKS:
Website: addyelsewhere.com
Bluesky: @aebrossbooks.bsky.social
Universal Links to Books: books2read.com/ap/xXJm2G/AE-Bross
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Book Elevator Pitch for readers/book clubs:
A reimagining of the classic Snow White, Bianca Nieve is the only child and heir to the fortune of the Nieve Corporation. When she finds herself on the wrong side of the law, she’s forced to flee into the streets of a city that she’s only seen from afar. There she finds help, comfort, and maybe even the will to oppose her own legacy.
CyberSnow by A.E. BrossYour latest release is CyberSnow, a queer cyberpunk retelling of Snow White; what inspired you to meld this fairy tale with this genre?
When the idea first struck me, it was just a passing thought. I wondered what fairy tales might look like in a genre that seemed so set apart from the original telling. Then, the more I looked at it, the more I wanted the challenge. I loved how well Snow White fell into the dynamic of cyberpunk and thought it would be fun to explore it.
How did you tackle the elements of the fairy tale that require more sensitivity, such as the translation of the fantasy dwarf element into a cyberpunk world?
At this point, many of us are aware of the antisemitism that sort of undergirds the entire concept of the fantasy dwarf. I wanted to remove that from my storytelling, but I also wanted to have a place for little people in my story.
There have been so many opportunities for this fairy tale to be told in a way that doesn’t Other marginalized folks, and we don’t see that in popular media. I remember back a few years when Peter Dinklage was calling out Disney for not being progressive with their depictions of the dwarfs in their live action remake of their film. That’s just stuck with me, so I made the little people in my retelling some of the prime movers of the story. I wanted the depiction to eschew the gross stereotypes and just let them be as nuanced as they are.
What sort of representation will readers find in the story, and why was it important to you to include this representation? What was your process to ensure this representation was created sensitively?
There’s a fair bit of representation, I think.
First and foremost, the MC Bianca Nieve is autistic. The narrative never outright says she is, but her symptoms and expressions and coping mechanisms all come from my own autistic experience. It’s very much an ‘own voices’ situation with her.
Taja, my second MC, is a trans woman. This I had to do some research for, including talking with trans women regarding certain aspects of transition and life in general.
Depictions of life for little people was a bit trickier. I had to do a lot of research when it came to accommodations and differences in every day life. I watched a lot of interviews with little people and dove into accessible home design, as well as accessibility needs in public spaces. Also the different kinds of dwarfism and how that could or would affect life. We all know that no one group of people is a monolith, so it was a lot of gathering perspectives and treating each one with the importance that it carries. There were so many things that folks of the taller persuasion don’t even dream of thinking of. Counter height, furniture, bathroom utilities, driving and mobility aids. It blew my mind.
What were the main influences for the corporation and the city – how did you go about developing this world and its socio-political conditions?
If I’m being honest, I drew a lot of influence from what is going on in the world right now, specifically in the United States. There is a lot of sway that large corporations currently hold over decisions being made in the U.S. government, and I used a lot of what I was seeing in the news and a lot of what I was hearing from individuals who were being harmed and fed it into this story.
While Bianca Nieve is the Snow White equivalent, and the heir to the giant corporation, Taja, is another POV character from a very different background; tell us how & why you chose the POVs found in the story, and how they help you to bring out themes of anti-capitalism and acceptance within the novella?
I wanted a different kind of riches to come from Taja’s POV. In the original story, Snow White’s love interest isn’t a real part of the tale, so much as he’s supposed to be the reward at the end, when Snow White has somehow survived all of the trials her stepmother put her through. I wanted Bianca to have someone who could help her through those trials, to make them less frightening. So that meant someone who had been in the city, who knew the ins and outs, but also knew a whole slew of different people with wildly differing personalities and that they all somehow fit, despite having their disagreements. I think that’s where the acceptance comes in.
As for the anti-capitalism, I wanted to make it so Taja was successful, but not in a monetary way. Yes, we all have to deal with the system we are in, but Taja gets to take repair jobs she wants, (try to) keep her sister out of trouble, and be a helping hand, and is still managing to stay afloat. She’s finding her success in a different way, away from money, and I think that’s important. In our society, we’re constantly sold nice things or vacations or standards of living. I think it’s important to find that place where you can get by, but you also make your own nice things. I wanted someone who could show Bianca (and the reader) that. Thus, Taja.
Can you share your favourite reader reaction or editor reaction to the book out of context?
My critique partner, who is also my spouse, wrote in big letters, “I’m sorry, WHAT?” next to a part later on in the story. While his writing is not normally very legible (it’s taken years for me to be able to decipher it on sight) he wrote the “WHAT” so big that I could have read it from space and had to laugh. I’m hoping I get a few more people with reactions like that when the book is released.
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